Russia's Putin vows to halve poverty in pre-election speech

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he intends to halve poverty in the country within the next six years, in his annual state of the nation address in Moscow.

The speech is the last before an election he is expected to win in 17 days’ time.

Mr Putin is laying out his key policies for his fourth presidential term.

“Every person matters to us,” he said, adding that he wanted to increase employment and longevity.

Mr Putin faces seven challengers on 18 March although none is expected to attract widespread support. The president played no part in a raucous televised debate broadcast on Wednesday that featured the other candidates.

Absent from the campaign is prominent opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who has been barred from running and has called on voters to boycott the poll.

President Putin has so far done little campaigning and until now said little about his plans for the next six years.

Fighting poverty

In his speech to a joint sitting of both houses of parliament on Thursday, he said he wanted Russia to emulate life-expectancy rates in Japan and France.

In 2000 there were 42 million people in Russia living below the poverty line, he said; today there were 20 million, but this still needed to come down.

He also said Russia could not take its power for granted.

“We have no right to allow the stability we have achieved to lead to complacency. Especially since we are far from resolving many problems,” he said.

“Russia is now a leading country with a powerful foreign economic and defence potential. But from the point of view of the extremely important task of ensuring people’s quality of life and welfare we, of course, have not achieved the level we require. But we have to do this and will do this,” he added to applause.